The entries that form our annotated bibliography furnish the reader
with all the salient information needed for purposes of library search and
retrieval. Authors are listed in alphabetical order, with the works of an
individual arranged, chronologically, from date of earliest appearance to
most recent. When a work is coauthored, or multiauthored, all individuals
involved are acknowledged. The details of the entry, however, are
rendered under the person granted "principal authorship" by virtue of their
name appearing first on the title page.Bibliographic particulars are spelled
out with as much precision as we could marshal: full title and subtitle,
volume and/or issue number, page length, and whether or not the entry
contains tables, a bibliography, appendices, figures, plates or maps, a
glossary, and an index.As much as we can, we try to indicate the amount
of material referenced by an author, a surrogate measure of familiarity with
published and unpublished sources. Place of publication of journals and
periodicals, with the name of the institution responsible for publication, is
provided in an appendix.Several key words highlight each entry.

Our emphasis on engaged commentary with the literature we believe
makes this volume a unique contribution. We would like to draw the
reader's attention, however, to several titles that relate to our subject matter.
A compilation by Sydney David Markman ( 1971), provides 2,250
references to archival and published sources on a variety of topics.
Thematically more specific is a similar two-volume work by the same
author (Markman 1993). A collection of essays edited by Kenneth J. Grieb
( 1985) offers an inventory of archives and libraries with important holdings
on Central America.Within the region, no repository matches the riches of
the Archivo General de Centro América in Guatemala City, which houses
primary documents for the entire audiencia district.Three guides to the
archive are helpful, one in English (Weathers 1981), two in Spanish (Luján
Muñoz 1982; López Gómez 1991). Collectively, these surveys of
unpublished records are an essential complement to our appraisal of
predominantly published literature.

What, historiographically, do our entries represent in terms of trends
and indicators? We offer the following assessment, in narrative and tabular
form, only by way of suggestion. Anything more definitive would not be
appropriate.

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